Celebrating the great Canadian game. Tracking the NHL, the Canadian teams and a lot more!

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

"The challenge is to keep winning..."

In a nutshell, that headline grabbing declaration is what is motivating the now record holding Ottawa Senators.

The Sens off to the best start in franchise history, claimed victory number 13 on Tuesday night, a solid 5-1 thumping of a listless looking Toronto Maple Leaf team.

While the Sens resembled a finely tuned machine, firing on all cylinders and seemingly able to cruise for miles, the Leafs are looking more and more like an old jalopy, in dire need of some maintenance and possibly best left in the backyard lest they run out of gas or lose a few parts on the road.

Ottawa set a new NHL record for points on Tuesday, accumulating their 26th point on the season in just 14 games, eclipsing the previous record total of 25 shared by Detroit and Buffalo.

Senators coach John Paddock has the enjoyable luxury of just having to watch his team execute the game plan almost flawlessly, stepping in only on occasion to tweak an attack or to remind his players about their defensive responsibilities.

On Tuesday, the Leafs head coach Paul Maurice was reduced to chastising his player on the bench, trying to coax some kind of attempt to show that they were engaged in the game and were willing to try and battle back despite the growing deficit in goals.

In the end, his words seemed to fall on deaf ears as the Leafs continued to struggle, letting Ottawa take the flow of the game and quickly silence those Leaf fans that regularly attend the Senators home games at Scotiabank Place.

It was a history making night for the Sens who give every appearance of being the league's best team this year. And should the bumbling trend continue for Toronto, history may soon attend to the Leafs side of the rink as well, as in historical remembrances of players and maybe coaches and managers that once toiled on behalf of the Maple Leafs.

There was no shortage of media updates on the Tuesday night match from Ottawa.